CAl^IFORNIA VVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



83 



appoint the committee — on new varieties and nomenclature, whose 

 business it would be to judge the fruit as it is brought in. If we are 

 going to have two meetings a year we can get every one who has 

 seedlings, and encourage them to bring them in here and exhibit 

 them. Those people who are of the thick-skinned crowd can come 

 in in the spring, and the thin-skinned in the fall, and then the com- 

 mittee can correctly judge the A-alue of those and give some tangi- 

 ble evidence of their quality, for instance, an award of merit. 

 Nurserymen propagating a variety say that it is a good variety, 

 and some one says, "Who says so?" Answer: "The Committee of 

 the Avocado Association gave this award of merit." And that 

 would mean something, and those that are given the award of merit 

 in that way could be scientifically described and given a name. 



Now, my friends, we would like to direct this discussion clearly 

 and concisely. This question of name, I presume, comes up first. 



THE NAME 



D. W. Coolidge, secretary of the association took the chair. 



A motion was made and seconded to adopt the name "Avocado" 

 instead of "Ahuacate." 



Mr. Adams of Upland opened the discussion as follows : 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is a thing of vital 

 moment to us to decide upon a name if we are going to get 

 rid of the words "alligator pear," and I am sure most of us 

 don't desire to have our fruit masquerade under anything that 

 has relation to either alligators or pears, and if you could realize 

 what that one effort could accomplish you would not hesitate. I 

 think you can readily see if you refer back to the efforts we made 

 in the early days of the citrus fruit industry to change the Avord 

 "grape fruit." The United States Department of Agriculture, the 

 American Horticultural Society, and the Society of Growers and 

 Nurserymen, and very large people interested in producing this 

 fruit, used every effort to bring about the adoption of the name 

 Pomelo, but the people in general, consumers, retailers and job- 

 bers, had got used to the name grape fruit and they would have 

 no other. The effort failed, and now, today, we have a similar op- 

 portunity, a great deal better opportunity, because it is much earlier 

 in the history of the industry, to adopt a name for popular usage. 



